Daniel Negreanu Wins WSOPE High Roller, Takes Down WSOP POY Award As Well

Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 by Ryan

You’ve got to love a story like this with a player like Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu has been one of the most well-respected names in the game of poker for a long time now, and he’s had one heck of a year as well to this point. While he had an incredible 2013 World Series of Poker, it came to an incredible finish, as he was able to win the €25,000 High Roller event at the World Series of Poker Europe. Not only did he win the huge pay day that came along with this, but he also took down his second World Series of Poker Player of the Year award. This was the sixth WSOP gold bracelet in Negreanu’s career, and it also makes him one of only 11 men who have won at least six gold bracelets in their careers. He’s also the only player to EVER win the WSOP Player of the Year award twice, as he also did it back in 2004 as well.

When Day One came to a close, we saw 80 entries buy-in to the massive High Roller event, and just two days after that at noon there were only 13 players left in the action fighting for the title. When the final day started, we saw Phillipp Gruissem sitting at the top of the leaderboard with 1.296 million chips. It wasn’t going to be easy though, as the rest of the field was filled up with big named pros, which included the likes of Erik Seidel, Jason Koon, Phil Laak, Scott Seiver, Timothy Adams, and Joni Jouhkimainen. Any player who was left in the action was going to have to earn their deep run, so the players went right to work.

Scott Seiver took down the first elimination when he knocked out Tom Bedell on the first hand of play. Phil Laak started the day as one of the short stacks, but he kept battling and battling before eventually being knocked out by Erik Seidel. After that, Byron Kaverman was sent home by Nicolau Villa-Lobos, and then once we saw Adams knock off Marc McLaughlin, it meant that we were past the bubble and that only nine players were left in the action to set up the final table of play.

Gruissem was at the top still with 2.1 million, and had a nice one million chip lead over Scott Seiver. Then it was a tie for third between David Peters and Jason Koon with 650k in chips, and then Villa-Lobos with 550k. From there, Timothy Adams was in sixth with 510k, Seidel was in seventh with 335k, Negreanu was in 8th with 145k, and Jouhkimainen was in ninth with 38k. As you can tell from that, Negreanu and Jouhkimainen had a whole lot of work to do to catch up.

It took just two hands for Jouhkimainen to get sent home in ninth, as he shoved all in and got folds from everyone except Gruissem, who had A-J. His A-J held against his opponents’ K-5, and with that it meant that Negreanu locked up the WSOP POY award. Gruissem even jokingly yelled “King!” when the flop came down. From here, it was time for Negreanu to go into attack mode to build his own stack up, and he did just that.

First Negreanu doubled up through Seidel, who was knocked out in eight place a few hands after that, and then doubled again through Peters when his A-K bettered the pocket tens of Peters. When we saw our “official” eight handed final table began, Negreanu was surprisingly sitting in third place behind Gruissem and Seiver, and was probably the most dangerous player at the table.

After Seidel got knocked out, we saw 45 more hands go by before another knockout happened. In this hand Negreanu limped in, and Koon then shoved all-in from there. Peters then called from the small blind, and Negreanu got out of the way. It was a good decision by Negreanu, as Peters turned over pocket Aces, and Koon’s A-K had a whole lot of work to do. He couldn’t improve though, and Koon was sent home in seventh place.

Negreanu then knocked out Seiver in a big hand in sixth place, and Adams was the next player sent home after a tough break. He got it in with K-J against Villa-Lobos’ A-Q, and hit a Jack on the flop, but an Ace on the river changed things quickly, and left Adams with just 90k in chips, and he was knocked out two hands later in fifth place.

Dinner break came and went, and then we had four players left in Gruissem, Peters, Negreanu, and Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos was at the bottom, but won four of eight hands to get out of last place, and passed Peters. Peters was then sent home on hand 128 when Negreanu raised pre-flop and Villa-Lobos three-bet. Peters shoved all-in, and after a Negreanu fold, we saw Villa-Lobos call. Peters had pocket tens, but the A-Q of Villa-Lobos managed to grab the win when a Queen came on the flop.

On the 150th hand, we saw our heads up match get set, as Negreanu raised pre-flop and Gruissem shoved all-in for his tournament life. Gruissem showed A-4, but was far behind the A-J of Negreanu. Gruissem was sent home in third place, and Negreanu had a two to one chip lead over Villa-Lobos in heads up play.

Villa-Lobos built his stack up over the first 20 hands and make things even, but it took 40 more hands for Negreanu to get the job done. The last hand of the tournament saw Villa-Lobos limp in, and Negreanu raise the action up. Villa-Lobos pushed all-in, and Negreanu snap called showing pocket Jacks against the pocket fives of Villa-Lobos. That was all she wrote, and it gave Negreanu the big win of €725,000, and the gold bracelet. For second place, Nicolau Villa-Lobos took home €450,000.